JINGSHAN, Hubei Province: A man who served 11 years in prison after being
wrongly convicted of murdering his wife was officially cleared yesterday.

She Xianglin, 39, walked free following the pronouncement of the Jingshan
County People's Court, the same body which in 1998 sentenced him to a 15-year
jail term.

She Xianglin is
declared innocent and released during a retrial by Jingshan people's
court in Hubei Province April 13, 2005. He was wrongly sentenced and
has served 11 years in prison for allegedly murduring his wife who is
proven to be alive and recently returned to see She Xianglin. According to
Chinese law, She is entitled to seek state compensation and those persons
held responsible for the She case would be investigated.
[newsphoto]

He was informed by the court of the right to apply for state compensation.

The miscarriage of justice came to light when She's wife, Zhang Zaiyu, the
supposed victim of She's "crime," resurfaced late last month after being missing
for 11 years.

More than 2,000 local residents cheered and applauded yesterday as the man
convicted of killing her walked free from court.

She's wife disappeared in January 1994 from Yanmenkou Township of Jingshan
County in Central China's Hubei Province.

Three months later, a female body was found in a pond in the township and
relatives of the missing woman identified it as Zhang.

Local police charged She with murdering his wife. He was arrested in April
1994 and had been in custody ever since.

However, Zhang reappeared late last month and was identified through DNA
testing. Zhang had remarried in East China's Shandong Province and lived there
since her disappearance in 1994.

Despite spending a decade behind bars for a non-existent crime, the newly
freed She was not bitter.

"There is justice in the world in fact," he said after the official judgment
was announced in court yesterday.

"I always believe the law is just even if I was wrongly jailed for so long,"
he told the China Daily.

"Policemen and other law enforcers made errors, it was not a problem with the
law itself," said the 39-year-old, who last tasted freedom when he was 28.

The original conviction came based on a confession which She says was
extracted under police torture.

"I believe the law will punish them and offer me a just result," he added.

A spokesman for the Jingmen government, which administrates over Jingshan
County, said yesterday that investigations into those responsible for the
miscarriage of justice were already underway.

"The Hubei provincial government sent a joint team consisting of the
provincial department of public security, procuratorate and the high people's
court to dig into the case," he said yesterday.

"No result or decision has been reached in apportioning blame or punishing
those responsible for this travesty," he added.

Zhang Chengmao, She's lawyer, said yesterday he would seek State compensation
at the Jingmen Intermediate People's Court.

"But we have not reached a compensation figure yet," he added.

When asked about the prospect of compensation, She said however large any
payment might be there were some things money could not buy.

"My mother, who died from the stress of continuously appealing, cannot be
bought. Eleven years of freedom cannot be bought. Schooling of my daughter which
was stopped because of poverty cannot be bought," he said.

As for his former wife, the man said he did not hate her at all. "If she had
not reappeared, maybe I would have been wronged for life," he said.

He also said he did not plan to sue Zhang for bigamy. Zhang remarried in
Shandong without divorcing She.

Pan Shuiguan, a 70-year-old man who waited for the judgment at the gate of
the court, said: "Those who wronged She should be punished."